The first 250 Friends who sign-up to give $10 a month will receive a punchcard for four, buy one, get one free cones, available through September 2010.

The first 250 Friends who make a one-time, $120 gift will receive a punchcard for 12 monthly buy one, get one free cones, also through September 2010. You can sign up to be one of 1000 Friends of Local Matters on the website or in person at Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream in the Short North on Saturday, October 3 from 4:00-10:00 p.m.

Dear Abby: My father is a businessman who travels.
Each time he returns from one of his trips,
his shoes are covered in blood-

but he never forgets to bring me a nice present;
Should I say something?
Signed, America

Way way back in 73
The States of America all slept sound

Way way back in 73
But in South America some shit went down

There are 8 million stories in the world economy.
Stories of greed, stories of hope,
Stories of men with means and men with ideas,
This is one of them.

Now Milton was a Chi-town math kingpin,
Preachin bout the gods of supply & demand.
If he had it his way the market would lead.
He despised social government and John Maynard Keynes

Okay, down in Chile, Salvador Allende
Won a fair election saying “Fuck you CIA”
An opportunity for Milton Friedman’s machine
When Dick Nixon cried “Make their economy scream!”

So they spent 8 million try ta undermine Allende but they failed that
Too many people had his back
So the military coup starred Pinochet
Who had Milton in his office by noon the next day

Now shit went insane. In the stadiums
They rounded-up 13,000 people
who’d witnessed their evils
Troopers marched in to wave their guns (guns)
3000 dead, many more on the run (run)
Makin big m-o-n-e-y
Had to liquefy the vox populi
It’s demanded
Now deruglation is expanded,
It’s commanded to cut social spending, understand it?

Now Chile is a clean slate
Cleared by Pinochet
The Chi-town class-mates’
Ideas ruled the day
Chile fell to poverty
And shock therapy
Unemployment overdose
And human rights disgrace

But people at gunpoint learn to obey
When they’re homeless and hungry and dying away
So the Miracle of Chile was mythologized
And Milton Friedman got the Nobel Prize

You either pay American businesses to build American-style highways and powerplants that your people don’t need, dooming your nation to be forever in debt … or you get ousted by a CIA-organized coup.

Which would you choose?

Some folks live by the laws of the wild
Some learn slower and die in the mud
Some stand up to protest for a while
But that’s when the big dogs chew them up

Now John was a bad man
an Economic hitman
Making cash by makin kings a third world con men
Started with the oil plan
Roosevelt in Iran
Overthrew Mossadegh
And Replaced him with Ike’s man

CIA coup d’etat Arbenz in Guatamala
Victim of the red scare and propaganda
The CIA marched in with 400 troops (hooray!)
Colonialism to protect United Fruit
A few years later down in Panan
John got involved in a shipping drama
Torrijos, the man who controlled the canal
Wouldn’t capitulate to the U.S. cabal
He had had this idea to sell the rights to Japan
But he knew all about what went down in Iran
So he predicted that fate for himself, and sure enough
In August 81 his fuckin plane blew-up

But the one
that blows my mind
Totally on of a kind
Scheme to rob a nation’s people
completely blind

It was Indonesia, see
Victim of another coup of CIA
design

Cleansing time once the left was maligned
Shooting lists were distributed
for which they were pentagon armed and suited

OH rivers clogged with bodies OH hell embodied
But who stepped in to stop the massacre – that’s right nobody.

Turns out
It was all part of the master plan everybody
So hold no grudge
And hold your tongue
Cause
This Indonesian story’s far from done
Sure we had the rubber, the copper, and the oil, see
But there was plenty more where that came from
Opportunity
6 years passed
The country’s almost hobblin
So we went back in and sent John the hitman and his staff to ply their stage craft

So it’s an infrastructure
Bullshit kit
They say the poor need highways and electrics

They’ll be in debt forever
The leaders shoulda known better
For the record don’t think they didn’t profit from the metrics

So kill your national pride
And give into our demands or else
We’ll squeeze your land dry and fill it with ourselves

[Note: Since this is about supporting local businesses in their time of need, not tools, it’s worth mentioning that being on twitter isn’t a prerequisite for joining us, and neither is blogging or being on facebook, etc. OK?]

Do What You Want To Do. Go Ahead.

When: January 10th — that’s a Saturday — 5:00ish*

*If you want to try and eat (together), a 5:00 arrival is recommended; otherwise, we’ll probably have to split up during the dinner rush and then convene at the bar. If you’re just coming for cocktails, we’ll be there from 5:00ish until 7:30ish.

But so they’ve got a gig coming up called Foolin’ around with Infinity on 12/19 and 12/20, at Denison, and I was checking it out and saw this:
I asked Matt about it last week, via email, and he said (quoting without permission — sorry, Matt):

Pay What You Want is something I wanted to do forever. We tried it earlier this year and it was a huge hit… So we’re sticking with it. I think it’s better for everyone.

Pretty revealing about the level of confidence in the value of their work, don’t you think?

(The word ‘ballsy’ comes to mind, but I don’t think that’s quite right.)

So I’m going to the show on 12/20.

And I haven’t figured out how much I want to pay yet, no.

But I’m going.

And I’m already thinking about the value of the experience, in advance, and how I might best make a meaningful contribution, support-wise.

So… who wants to come with me?

It’ll be fun. We’ll pay what we want!

[Note: There are two non-profits you’re going to be hearing A LOT about in ’09. BOTH are dedicated to bringing healthy, organic, locally-grown goodness to Columbus:

On the south end, you’ll have DJs Moxy and Sonya, spinning from 6:00 to 9:00 and 9:00 to 12:00, respectively.

Plus a — get this — ginormous T-shaped runway in the middle of High Street (the top of the T backs up to Dr. Mojoe, if you’re trying to picture this; the stem is like 30 ft) for the Costume Couture Fashion Show.

(Now. Before you even begin to rehash the 35 pages of debate on CU about what exactly ‘fashion’ is and what does Columbus have to do with it anyway, let us acknowledge that it (‘fashion’) is indeed subjective and amorphous and, to most of us, fleeting, but that it does have something to do with, I think, ‘freedom of expression through your wardrobe,’ plus ‘being creative within certain bounds’ and ‘intentionality’ — yes.)

That being said, we’ve got a veritable gaggle of talented designers in Columbus and we’re going to be featuring couture costume designs — plus three or four ready-to-wear looks a piece — from eleven of them right here.

Day 2 of forced digital nomadism due to the remnants of Hurricane Ike.

Hasn’t been that bad, really — our house isn’t damaged, we can still shower, the cars have gas, etc.

Jamo doesn’t have school…

Probably about .005% of what the folks down in Galveston and the Texas coast are experiencing.

A minor inconvenience, at worst.

Plus, about a month back I was having thoughts like this:

Which I did, like, the very next day:

So while neither my office nor the JDA office has power or phone service or Internet access, I’m holed up at the Cup O’ Joe in the Short North (pretty much all of which neighborhood has power, by the way) with full access to pretty much everything work-related.

And I’ll be damned if the tunes aren’t consistently good here.

If you’re a client, you already know how to get in touch.

If you want to be a client, you probably already know, too.

In case not:

Cell: 614.598.1729

Mobile email: ryan@areyoubrilliant.com

Gtalk: ryan@areyoubrilliant.com

Twitter: @slimgoodies

I’ll be in and out of meetings all day, so if you don’t get me, leave a message and I’ll get right back…